


Foxes and Hedgehogs

by jackdawq



Category: Persona 4
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-25
Updated: 2013-07-25
Packaged: 2017-12-21 07:48:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/897746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jackdawq/pseuds/jackdawq
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Humans have a saying: where the fox knows many things, the hedgehog knows one big thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Foxes and Hedgehogs

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for the very loose use of the proverb (and later interpretation)

Humans have a saying: where the fox knows many things, the hedgehog knows one big thing.  
  
Fox would not contend this. She knows the scent of the cold and damp December air _(earth, smoke, pine needles)_ and the faces of those who visit the shrine _(desperate, hopeful)_. She knows the strength the kami grant her and the power of rumor and belief.  
  
Humans are different. They consider themselves as foxes, but in the end most boil their world down to a single unique idea. It lives at the core of their being, often without their notice. Both they and their ideas are fascinating and even with the experience of more than one lifetime they mystify her in so many ways. The group she has dealt with recently, at the behest of the woman in blue, have proved extraordinary.  
  
The visits to the other world have ceased, though, and her friend with the silver hair no longer comes to the shrine. Fox knows the reason and that the others will come in his place, but their bond is not the same.  
  
She can only hope he will return eventually. Until then, she watches each of them visit in turn.

 

* * *

  
  
First is the girl who always stays behind, though Fox is more used to seeing her grandmother here. Perhaps age grants humans faith in the unseen, or perhaps the old beliefs are dying. This truth is not something she knows. She does know that this girl's faith lies in other people; that though she can be capricious and mischievous, she simply wants to be liked. She wishes to please others, a painful task at best.  
  
The girl walks slowly along the path, hands clasped round a wooden ema. Her footsteps are quiet and uncertain, traits Fox suspects she does her best to hide. As she nears the shrine, she glances around the grove - and when she notices Fox she forces a smile. Then she holds up the ema, presses it to her lips, and hangs it carefully on the wall. A handful of coins jingles against the base of the box.  
  
When she turns back, there are tears on her cheeks, though she doesn't make a sound. Fox trots down to the pathway, brushes against her legs, nudges against her hand.  
  
The girl chokes out a soft laugh and smiles a second time. She bends down to rub Fox's head, making certain to scratch behind the ears.  
  
They both stay behind, both watch over others. In the end, all this girl wishes is to help, but Fox realizes that only makes recent events harder to bear.

 

* * *

  
  
Second are the two girls who move and speak as one, breathing in and out in turn. On the surface their differences are clear: force versus grace, energy versus serenity. The surface, of course, means nothing.  
  
Their hands are clasped as they walk down the path in silence. In the set of the girl in green's jaw Fox sees days spent among demons, all ending in a single night in a hospital corridor. In the girl in red's slow footsteps, she hears a painful absence. This is the language she best comprehends: the tension in taut muscle, the words spoken by a bowed head.  
  
The girl in the red is the one carrying the ema and judging by the ornate calligraphy she also scribed the request. The girl in green, however, is the one to hang it, giving it pride of place in the center of the wall even though the girl in red smiles and shakes her head.  
  
The smile quickly fades. The taller girl's shoulders shake and she bites her lip - and when they shake harder, she covers her face with one hand. The other girl looks up, her eyes softened. She places a hand on her friend's shoulder and tugs her into a tight embrace, running her fingers through long black hair.  
  
Fox does not watch. When the quiet sound of sobbing fades, she lifts her head. The two are apart again, but their hands are still clasped together and their fingers intertwined. The girl in red manages a watery smile, returned by a grin from the other.  
  
Fox chooses this moment to run down to the shrine and around their legs, weaving between. The girl in red laughs, then carefully kneels down on the stones. When Fox licks her fingers she laughs again.  
  
Her friend laughs too, with a shake of her head.  
  
Each is the center of the other's world: the one big thing that the other knows. Fox does not worry for these two, not while they have each other.

 

* * *

  
  
Third should be the half-boy, the one who desperately wants to be whole. He left his world to live with humans and he has visited the shrine before, to hang ema in scrawled, childish writing.  
  
Yet he does not come. Fox asks the kami why, but they do not answer.

 

* * *

  
  
Third, then, is the boy from the store up the street with the colourful rolls of fabric neatly lining the window. His boots scrape against the path and he ducks to avoid the low-hanging branches. Fox saw him here only once before, half as tall and accompanied by his mother. He held a picture of an older man in his hands then, now replaced by a wooden ema.  
  
The boy stops a short distance from the shrine and frowns. He looks at his hand, then the roof, and bites his lip. His fist clenches round the ema almost tight enough to snap the wood. Then he shakes his head firmly and strides towards the shrine. At the wall he hangs the ema with utmost care, making sure not to disturb any of the others, then leans down and places a handful of coins in the box.  
  
She knows he cares for the stray cats in the district. They do not speak, of course, not in the sense that humans do, but they tell her all the same: _this boy has a good heart._ He has less one big idea, more one big feeling: the urge to protect.  
  
Fox wanders up to him as he stands in front of the box and paws against his calves, and when he looks down and grins, something warm stirs in her chest. She rolls over onto her back without thinking, lets him scratch her stomach as he clicks his tongue against his teeth. Perhaps she should be more wary, yet she senses this boy - fierce but kind, clumsy but gentle - does not break things he cares for.  
  
It's only a few moments before he pulls back and straightens up. He glances back at the shrine, then the wall of ema, then sighs. There are no words of comfort to offer, not when Fox cannot speak - but even if she could, she still would not mention the small figure watching him from the edge of the pine trees.  
  
The boy shakes his head, slower this time, then walks down the path to the main street. Near the gate, he turns and waves to Fox.  
  
As soon as he leaves, the figure steps forward. Fox remembers this one: the second half-boy, if in an entirely different sense. She watches the gate till the echoing footsteps die away, then walks stiffly towards the wall holding the ema.  
  
She has been in Inaba less than a year and there are things Fox still does not understand. Humans have a talent for self-invention, but this one pursues hers to the point where it almost becomes real. Perhaps that is her one idea. Nonetheless, her faith lies in the rational and Fox is surprised by her visit.  
  
In front of the wall she reaches inside her jacket - smart and crisp, the opposite of the tall boy's ill-fitting leather - and pulls out an ema. It has almost nothing written on it compared to the others; just a few characters, sharp and absolute.  
  
The key to humans, Fox knows, lies in what they do not say. In this they mirror all other creatures. Their language is in their bodies, their motions, the twists of their mouths and the flickers across their eyes. This girl is regimented and difficult to read. Not everything can be disguised, though - not the long breath of air she lets out, nor the shake in her hands as she hangs the ema at the edge of the wall.  
  
She turns to leave. Midway down the path, she halts and looks down at Fox. For a long moment she does nothing but stare - then lifts her hand to her cap and tips down the brim with a nod.

 

* * *

  
  
The fifth arrival is signaled by a quiet, tinny rattling. Fox doesn't care for the sound but the boy appears fond of it. He drifts down the path, feet striking stone in time with the faint beat.  
  
As with the fourth visitor, Fox has never seen this boy at the shrine before. The people of the district resent him - or perhaps not him, but what he represents. He seems nervous to even be here, tapping his foot against the path as he stands in front of the wall. It's unusual in one who always projects confidence, yet sometimes projections are merely that. His current silence is strange too, but words have never held much weight in this place. Even those written on the ema are a formality: an attempt by humans to compress their thoughts into a form they can understand.  
  
He had no choice but to come, though, not as the silver-haired boy's closest friend. After a week of desperation, prayer is this boy's final resort. Fox does not begrudge him that. There is the old world and there is the new, and few ideas carry between them. This boy might be the closest to a fox yet - head full of noise and scraps of knowledge, but still searching for his true idea.  
  
The boy slips his hand inside his jacket pocket and the rattling dies away. He takes off the large cups around his neck, the things that make sound, then opens his bag and places them inside. In their place, he pulls out an ema. He glances back towards the gate before hanging it on the wall, one hand shoved in his jacket pocket.  
  
He stares at the ground for several moments. When he lifts his head he looks around again, and this time spots Fox. He smiles, makes a show of jangling the coins in his hand - a joke, she knows - before dropping them into the box. Then he walks over, kneels down and runs his hand along her back. It's the first time Fox can recall him touching her: old world meeting new.

 

* * *

  
  
Her friend finally returns four days later.  
  
Fox has known this boy almost since his arrival. The woman in blue spoke of him, as did the kami. He is important to this town. But he has lost something important to him in turn - and Fox suspects events did not unfold as they should.  
  
She sits perched on the roof and watches him walk slowly along the path. The cold January rain is falling and he holds a transparent umbrella in his hand. He does not carry an ema. The young girl, of course, is not with him.  
  
He stops in front of the shrine. The ema left by his friends are still prominent and he traces a shaking finger along each in turn, curving along the wall. Fox cannot read human script, but she is certain each says much the same, just in the language of its owner. The truth isn't in what's written, and Fox thinks her friend knows this. His head drops, a half-smile on his lips. Then he turns away from the wall and sits on the damp stones, umbrella still in his hand.  
  
She darts across the roof, over the tree branches and down to the ground. Her friend does not move and does not look up, not even when she nudges against his free hand. His breath is slow and unsteady. Raindrops beat against the top of the umbrella, and Fox curls up at his side.  
  
Moments later, she feels his hand on her back, warm against her fur.  
  
Fox wishes he had visited sixty years ago. The garden was immaculate; the stones were not cracked; the gold tiles glittered in the sun. She thought to ask the woman in blue for the money she'd earned calling upon the kami, but it no longer matters. Her friend has helped to reawaken the shrine in the memories of this town. People forget easily, but they can remember just as swiftly.  
  
Now the wall is full of ema and the box is heavy with coins. Fox will ensure the shrine looks as it did, as it should - and she will ensure her friend is not truly alone, even when he believes himself to be.


End file.
